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John McPherson Pinckney 



( Late a Representative from Texas) 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



* 



Fifty-ninth Congress 
First Session 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
April 29, 190b 



w 



Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing 



WASHINGTON : : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : : 1^07 



JUN 6 1907 
D. OF D. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page. 

Proceedings in the House 5 

Prayer by Rev. Henry X. Couden 7 

Memorial addresses by — 

Mr. Moore, of Texas q 

Mr. Field, of Texas n 

Mr. Padgett, of Tennessee 17 

Mr. Henry, of Texas 21 

Mr. Gregg, of Texas 28 

Mr. Burgess, of Texas 54 

Mr. Beall, of Texas 38 

Mr. Garner, of Texas 43 

Mr. Lamb, of Virginia 47 

Mr. Sheppard, of Texas 53 

Proceedings in the Senate 60 

3 



Death of representative John M. Pinckney 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE 

Tuesday, December 5, 1905. 

Mr. Stephens of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is my painful duty 
to announce to the House of Representatives the death of Hon. 
John M. Pinckney, of Texas, late a Member of this body. 
At a future day I shall ask that a suitable -time be set apart for 
the passing of such eulogies upon him as Members desire. 

I now move the adoption of the following resolution, which I 
send to the Clerk's desk and ask to have read. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hon. John M. Pinckney, late a Representative from the State of 
Texas. 

Resohrd, That the Clerk of the House be directed to transmit this reso- 
lution to the Senate, and a cop}' thereof to the family of the deceased. 

The Speaker. The question is on the adoption of the reso- 
lution. 

The question was taken; and the resolution was agreed to. 

Mr. Stephens of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as a further mark of 
respect to the memory of the late Mr. Pinckney, I move that 
the House do now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Accordingly (at 4 o'clock p. m.) the House adjourned until 

to-morrow at 12 o'clock noon. 

5 



8 Memorial Addresses : John M. Pinckney 

fit himself for the new conditions, that he might be of use as a 
public servant, and reaching a position of which any man may 
justly be proud. He died beloved and honored by a host of 
friends. We mourn his loss and mingle our tears with his 
dear ones'. Comfort them, we beseech Thee, O heavenly 
Father, with the blessed hope of the Christian religion, and 
may his life be an incentive to all who knew him to strive 
after the best. And honor and praise be Thine, through 
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

Mr. Stephens, of Texas. Mr. Speaker; I offer the resolu- 
tions which I send to the Clerk's desk. 

The resolutions were read, as follows: 

Resolved ', That the business of the House be now suspended, that oppor- 
tunity mav be given for tributes to the memory of Hon. John M. Pinck- 
ney, late a Member of this House from the State of Texas. 

Resolved, That as a special mark of respect and honor to the memory 
of the deceased, and in due recognition of his distinguished career as a 
citizen of his State and as a Member of this House, that the House, at the 
conclusion of the exercises of this day, shall stand adjourned. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 

Resolved, That the Clerk send a copy of these resolutions to the family 
of the deceased. 

The resolutions were agreed to. 

Mr. Stephens, of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous 
consent that Members of the House have leave for thirty days 
to print memorial addresses upon the life, character, and dis- 
tinguished services of the late Representative Pinckney. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas asks 
unanimous consent that Members desiring to do so have leave 
for thirty days to print remarks on the life, character, and dis- 
tinguished services of the late Representative Pinckney. Is 
there objection ? 

There was no objection. 



Address of Mr. Moore, of Texas 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



Address of Mr. Moore, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker: It is with profound sorrow that I offer this 

poor tribute to the memory of a departed friend, my immediate 

predecessor in this honorable body, John M. Pixckxf.y, whose 

tragic death occurred at his home town, Hempstead, Tex., on 

the night of April 24, 1905. The Congressional Directory of 

the Fifty-eighth Congress contains the following brief sketch 

of our deceased friend's life: 

John McPhkkson Pinckney, Democrat, of Hempstead, was born in 
Grimes County, Tex., May 4, 1845, and was reared near the place of his 
birth; the only education he received was in the public schools near the 
place of his birth and what he has secured by his own study; was a Con- 
federate soldier, serving four years in the Fourth Texas Regiment, Hood's 
brigade; entered upon the practice of law in 1S75; served ten years as 
district attorney of the twenty-third judicial district of Texas and three 
years as county judge of Waller County; was elected to the Fifty-eighth 
Congress November 17, 1903, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation 
of Hon. Thomas H. Ball. 

That his services were satisfactory and his efforts were 
appreciated by the people of his district is evidenced by the 
fact that he was reelected to the Fifty-ninth Congress. 

Living in an adjoining county to his home, and in one of the 
counties composing the twenty-third judicial district of Texas 
at the time he was attorney for such district, it was my privi- 
lege to know Judge Pinckney intimately for fifteen years. A 
strong advocate of law and order, he was a terror to the law- 
breaker, always doing his whole duty, prosecuting the influen- 



io Memorial Addresses : Joint M. Pinckney 

tial citizen with the same earnestness and vigor with which he 
prosecuted the friendless criminal. He was a stranger to fear, 
and I have often heard many of his old comrades praise his 
services as a soldier. One incident that I remember having 
heard related b}' one of his comrades, now a prominent citizen 
of my home county, which fairly illustrated the determined 
character of the man, was that during a certain battle he 
received a severe wound in the head, was carried to the rear, 
his wound dressed, and in less than an hour he was again in 
the front ranks in the thickest of the battle. 

The short time that he was a Member of this body probably 
did not give his colleagues the opportunity to know him as it 
was my privilege and pleasure. He was faithful to every trust, 
modest and unassuming, but courageous and determined. He 
was a true and loyal friend, devoted to his brothers and to his 
maiden sister, who shared his home. That sister and one 
brother survive him. Their loss is irreparable; and in his 
death his country has sustained the loss of a faithful and 
honest servant, and Texas, his native State, a noble, loyal, and 
devoted son. 



Address of Mr. Field, of Texas n 



Address of Mr. Field, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker: About one year ago, in this beautiful mouth, 
when the earth was covered with its mantle of green and the 
genial sunshine had coaxed from their hiding the myriads of 
flowers on the prairies of Texas, John M. Pinckney, a Mem- 
ber of this House, at a public assembly of his own people, in 
his own loved town, fell under the deadly fire of passionate and 
misguided men. He was pierced by many bullets from behind, 
' ' and died so instantly that he passed without pain from the 
service of his country to the service of his God," and "from 
the rounds of fame's ladder he stepped to the sky." 

Those about him tell me that in the last moments of his life 
he was advocating a cause which he believed to be right and 
was contending for the supremacy and enforcement of the law 
for which he always stood; and though unarmed and under 
deadly fire, he exhibited that superb courage which had distin- 
guished him on so many fields of battle. His tragic death was 
a shock to the people of Texas, and especially did the women 
mourn, for he boldly championed the cause of temperance, so 
dear to them. 

The time of his service in this House was short, and, being 
unfamiliar with the rules of procedure that govern here, he 
took no part in debate upon the floor, but each day found him in 
his place voting intelligently and honestly on all questions thus 
determined. His manner was so quiet and reserved, his modesty 
was such that, in this brilliant, ambitious, pushing throng 
of men, he was scarcely observed, and outside of his own State 
delegation was known by only a few Members of this House ; 



12 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

and yet had the record of his life been known to you, and could 
you have looked through the window of his soul and seen the 
man behind the garb, all who love the brave, the true, and the 
unselfish ones in life would have drawn close to him and hailed 
him as a brother. He moved in that quiet, unobtrusive rank 
where each day's duty is well performed, and where in the 
great emergencies of life heroes and leaders are found. I knew 
him well ; he was my friend and comrade. And "it is not fit 
that such a man should pass unheralded to the tomb ; it is not 
fit that such a life should steal unnoticed to its close ; ' ' but if 
my old friend was living now, or if, from beyond the stars, he 
still has knowledge of the affairs of men, he would not have me 
add one thing to the record he has made, use one flattering 
word, or magnify his virtues by too partial praise. 

John Pinckney belonged to the distinguished family of that 
name of South Carolina, from which State his father moved 
with his family to Texas before the civil war. His mother 
died when he was about 16 years of age, his father was a 
cripple and an invalid, and John was the main support of his 
father, two sisters, and a little brother. Extreme poverty 
deprived him of earl)' educational advantages, and it seemed 
would forever shut the door of opportunity in his face. 

Unaided he bore his loving burden cheerfully and well, and 
by his own efforts, supported by his sister's, raised and edu- 
cated orphan children. He secured a fair education, studied 
law, and took good rank at the bar. He was elected district 
attorney for ten consecutive years in his district without oppo- 
sition, and was recognized as one of the ablest, most fearless, 
and successful prosecuting attorneys in Texas, and perhaps no 
one in that State had ever prosecuted to conviction in so many 
cases of homicide. He was elected without opposition as 
county judge of his county, then elected to Congress, though 



Address of Mr. Field, of Texas 1 3 

opposed for the nomination by some of the ablest lawyers in 
south Texas. His success in public life was largely due to 
his splendid character, devotion to dut}-, and honesty and 
integrity, and close S5'mpathy with the masses of the people. 

Mr. Pixckney was never neutral; every question of public 
interest was to him either right or wrong. If right, he con- 
ceived it to be his duty to uphold it; if wrong, to publicly 
condemn, and whatever position he assumed he made no con- 
cessions, was influenced by no policy, and deterred by no 
danger. He preserved to the end of his life a character which 
never knew a stain and a courage which never surrendered a 
principle. 

He was never married; he supported his sister and orphan 
children; he lived for others and never thought of self. He 
had but little of this world's goods. He earned no money by 
sharp practice or by overreaching his fellow-men, and whatever 
he earned by honest toil he had no coffers wherein to place it. 
For those dependent upon him he provided well according to 
his means, and all the rest, with generous heart and open hands, 
he gave in charity to the needy and the poor. 

At the outbreak of the civil war Pinckney, then a boy 16 
years of age, enlisted as a private soldier in the Fourth Texas 
Regiment of Hood's immortal brigade, and in that four years of 
unequal contest, where might at last prevailed, this boy in gray 
became a hero — not such an one as a partial press makes for 
acts of little valor, but in that great struggle where gray anil 
blue alike did noble deeds. He received his baptism of fire at 
Elthams Landing, and at Gaines Mill he and the boys of his 
command, by their valor, placed the general's wreath around 
the colonel's stars of John B. Hood. He was at Second Manas- 
sas. He was at Sharpsburg, or Antietam, in the cornfield, 
where the rank growth was mown by the sickles of battle, and 



14 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

where more than half of his comrades were left dead and 
wounded on the field. He was at the Wilderness, and saw 
Captain Harding, of his command, lead the great commander's 
horse back to the rear from the line of certain death, and he 
fell wounded on the field just as the shout of victory was raised. 
He came with Longstreet and Hood to Chickamauga, where the 
veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia touched elbows on 
the firing line with the veterans of the Tennessee, and, united, 
contended on that bloody field with men of equal valor who 
wore the blue. He was at the storming of Round Top Moun- 
tain at Gettysburg, where human valor reached its highest flood 
tide, and where, could the crest of the mountain have been held 
for a few brief moments, the Confederacy would have lived and 
the history of the world been changed. He was in every great 
battle of the Army of Northern Virginia, except the first Manas- 
sas and Fredericksburg, and was one of the 8,000 immortals in 
gray who laid down their muskets at Appomattox. He was a 
private infantry soldier from the beginning to the end of the 
war, but the heroes of war are not always 011 horseback, nor do 
they always bear the insignia of rank, but more often are the 
man who bears the battle flag and the color guard who around 
him stand to raise it when he falls, and there is where John 
Pinckney often stood. When the cause for which he contended 
was lost and his country's flag was forever furled in gloom and 
in glory, Pinckney in good faith accepted his parole from a 
brave and generous foe, which from that time he honestly 
observed. He turned his face to the South, and, though worn 
by war and enfeebled by wounds, he tramped 2,000 miles to his 
loved Texas home. 

He stood with other returned Confederates through all the 
dark days of reconstruction, days more trying than war, more 
humiliating than defeat, but never losing hope, and he and 



Address of Mr. Field, of Texas 15 

those like him redeemed the Southland from radical misrule 
and placed it in the way of progress, and to them is due its 
present wonderful prosperity. In war and in peace he bore 
himself so well that the people loved and trusted and greatly 
honored him; and the uneducated country boy in gray who 
forty years before, with rifle in hand, stood picket on the banks 
of the Potomac, with scant clothing to shield him from the 
winter's blast, returned a Representative in the Congress of 
this great, happy, and reunited country. 

Mr. Speaker, I witnessed once, in this splendid Capitol, the 
honors paid to one who died high in place and power. Grand 
and imposing were the obsequies. The great ones of the nation 
and those who represent the nations of the earth were here, and 
many thousands came to pay deserved honor to the distin- 
guished dead. In the Senate Chamber the coffin rested on a 
bed of roses, and the pomp and ceremony was befitting the 
grand and solemn occasion, and it was well, for a great man 
was dead and the nation mourned. But all this did not so 
impress me as did the simple services on the occasion of Pinck- 
nkv's death. When I reached there the old soldier la} - at rest 
in his little humble, vineclad home; a brother, who gave his 
life in his defense, lay dead beside him, and his dear old sister — 
sister and mother both to him — could not be comforted, for 
death had sent too many darts of late into her devoted heart. 
The excitement of the day was over, the passions of men had 
subsided, the day was as beautiful and quiet as was the first 
Sabbeth at creation's dawn, the funeral bell tolled slowly as if 
each stroke would be the last, and as though reluctant to bear 
the sad, sad tidings. 

It was the warm springtime and the air wa . laden with the 
perfume of the jasmine and the rose. The people came by 
thousands from miles around — the rich and poor — in buggies, 



16 Memorial Addresses : John M. Pinckney 

wagons, on horseback, and on foot. A few old soldiers, the 
remnant of his gallant command, who had placed many of his 
fallen comrades in shallow trenches on the battlefield, stood by 
to bear him to his final resting place. An earnest, simple prayer 
was said, tears were falling, and many heart sobs could be 
heard. The hearse moved out and all the people followed in 
slow and long procession far across the prairie to the little 
country churchyard. Loving hands placed the clods above 
him, an humble prayer was said while the people knelt, a brief 
tribute was spoken, and then the women banked high the roses 
and prairie flowers on his lonely grave. I thought this is 
indeed the tribute my plain old friend would like, and such as 
his brave, useful, and unselfish life so well deserved, and look- 
ing at his cpuiet, peaceful resting place and thinking of the 
struggles he had had in life, the battles fought, the dangers 
past, the victories won, the many wounds upon his weary body, 
his comrades gone before, that could he have spoken he would 
have said : 

Dear friends, what the women lave 
For the last sleep of the grave, 
Is a hut which I am quitting, 
Is a garment no more fitting, 
Is a cage from which, at last, 
Like a bird, my soul has passed. 

Love the inmate, not the room, 

The wearer not the garb, 

The plume of the eagle, not the bars 

That hold me from those splendid stars. 

I cast a clod upon his lonely grave, have paid a last poor, 

but loving tribute to his memory, and now, my old friend and 

comrade, for a time, farewell and good cheer to you and all the 

boys; I'll meet you on the river at the crossing in the morning 

when the reveille shall sound. 



Address of Mr. Padgett, of Tennessee 



Address of Mb. Padgett, of Tennessee 

Mr. Speaker: I avail myself of this opportunity to en- 
deavor to pay a merited tribute of respect to the memory of a 
departed associate. I wish, sir, that I were able to pay a trib- 
ute commensurate with his deserts, but poverty of language 
denies to me that privilege. 

I did not know Mr. Pinckney before our association here. 
I did learn here to know him well. He was a retiring, modest, 
unassuming gentleman. Ofttimes during the sessions of the 
House he would meet me and talk in that quiet, friendly, com- 
forting way that drew us close together. He was not the 
dazzling sunflower nor the gorgeous rose; he was not one who 
startled or commanded men; but he was more like the violet, 
modest and retiring, that we have to search for, but that when 
found we gather to ourselves to be admired and loved. 

As a boy Mr. Pinckney had neither the advantages of wealth 
nor of influential station, but as the son of an invalid father was 
cast upon his own efforts and resources and had to bear much 
of the burden of the support of his family. He met the duties 
and responsibilities of a noble son in a way befitting the nobility 
of his character and his purpose. Growing into manhood, 
entering into the estate of citizenship, he ever met and cli> - 
charged the duties and responsibilities that came to him in a 
way that won for him the esteem, the confidence, and the 
respect of his fellow-citizens. Early in his life came that 
trving epoch in our nation's history when, as he saw his 
duty, it became incumbent upon him to enter upon the field 

H. Doc. S05, 59-2 2 



iS Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

of battle and assume the obligations of a soldier. Those who 
knew him during those times have testified to-day and others 
will testify to the splendid life and character and to the 
unsullied bravery which he displayed on the field of battle. 
He came out of the war in the very prime of young manhood 
and bega" to enter upon the duties of citizenship. He had so 
won the respect and confidence of his people that they honored 
him, as has been told you, by election to the judgeship for a 
series of years to preserve the order and maintain the Govern- 
ment among his people. He was also elected, for a longer 
number of years, as prosecuting attorney, to conduct the active 
administration of the duty of prosecuting offenders against the 
law and dignity of his State. In both of these positions, with 
unflinching courage, with unwavering devotion, with an impar- 
tiality which commended him for more exalted station, he hon- 
ored himself and he honored his people, and they commissioned 
him to represent them in this august body. When he came 
here he brought with him the same devotion to duty, the same 
purity of purpose, which had characterized his life and his 
public service at home. 

Mr. Speaker, John M. Pinckney was an honorable man. 
When I say that I do not limit him to that narrow view of 
honesty which renders to Cfesar the things that are Ccesar's. I 
do not place him upon the low level of the motto attributed to 
Benjamin Franklin, that " honesty is the best policy." It is 
true, sir, that honesty is the best policy; but may we not stop 
for a moment to think upon what a low plane that places this 
virtue — to be honest because it is politic, to be honest because 
it may be profitable, to be honest because it may serve a pur- 
pose or promote a selfish interest? Nay, verily, Mr. Speaker, 
John M. Pinckney was an honorable man who rose into the 
higher clime of integrity of character and nobility of purpose. 



Address of Mr. Padgett, of Tennessee 19 

He was honest because he loved the truth. He was honorable 
because falsehood was hateful to his soul. He was honorable 
because the truth was congenial to his very being. John M. 
PiNCKNEY, Mr. Speaker, was a good man. As I intimated a 
moment ago, I would not say that he was a threat man. He 
was not one of those whose brilliance and genius shone out 
as an overpowering light. We often impress upon others and 
upon our children the truth that it is a good thing to be a great 
man. I commend it, and it is true. But let us turn that 
proposition around, and it is equally true that it is a great 
thing to be a good man. 

John M. Pinckxkv was a good man, and in the superlative 
character of his goodness he was great. Mr. Pixckney was a 
man of convictions. He believed something. What he de- 
clared he believed, and he declared what he believed. He was 
not afraid for the world to know his purpose; he did not desire 
to withhold from his fellows his belief and his convictions. 
One thing he believed that I may properly refer to here, Mr. 
Speaker, and that is, he believed in temperance. He believed 
in private and public sobriety. He believed that it was to the 
uplifting of his fellow-men and to the betterment of his Com- 
monwealth to have sober citizens, and to that conviction he 
gave his life; and no grander tribute can lie paid to his memory, 
no better testimony can be borne to his character, than the sol- 
emn fact that he gave his life for the betterment of his people 
in upholding that principle of individual and public sobriety 
which he believed was a foundation principle in human society. 
It was a holy moment, a noble cause in which to die. Mr. 
Speaker, we can not understand the mystery of death — why it 
is that he should have been cut down just at that moment, or 
why others go in such mysterious and, as it seems to us, inop- 
portune times. It is not my purpose here to philosophize about 



20 Memorial Addresses : Jolui J/. Pinckney 

death, but one thought does occur to me. The seed must lie 
planted to grow. As long as it remains implanted it is circum- 
scribed and limited by its own circumference; but plant the 
seed in the soil, in the sunshine and rain, and the bod}' breaks 
and there comes forth the plant with its foliage, its fruitage, 
and its flowers; and so it has been said of us: Except we be 
planted we shall not live; earth to earth, dust to dust; the 
manacles of the flesh broken loose, the limitation of the senses 
removed, and the soul in communion with the universe, in fel- 
lowship with eternity. In that life, Mr. Speaker, where the 
good and the true and the brave are gathered, there we shall 
expect to find John M. Pincknkv, and to be with the true, the 
good, and the brave of the earth forever will be satisfaction. 



Address of Mr. Henry, of Texas 21 



Address of Mr. Henry, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker: One year and five days have elapsed since 
Hon. John M. Pinckxey, in a deplorable tragedy, at the town 
of Hempstead, Tex., in an unexpected moment, was hurled 
into eternity. His death came without warning while he was 
attending a citizens' meeting of his home town. It grew out 
of one of those unfortunate differences so frequently engendered 
by a discussion of the liquor problem. John M. Pixckxkv 
sprang from a talented and chivalrous race of men who have 
made the history of more than one Southern State rich in deeds 
of valor and patriotism. His name is linked with those of the 
Prestons, Sims, Bees, and others of the South who have con- 
tributed to the glory and achievement of this Republic. 

In the early days of this Government, while Washington and 
Adams were President, there were complications of our com- 
merce on the high seas with France, and citizens of that coun- 
try were committing depredations against us. Adams sent an 
embassy to France to adjust the differences between the two 
nations. The French Directory insulted our embassy by refus- 
ing to give audience until a liberal sum was paid the French 
Government and a quarter of a million dollars was given to 
Talleyrand, who was on the Directory. In reply to this dis- 
graceful demand, one of our embassy made the immortal answer: 
"Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute." Thus 
answered Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a citizen of South 
Carolina. From this patriotic name and distinguished ancestry 
sprang Johx M. Pixckxev. He ever proved himself a worthy 
son of the noble race of men preceding him. Their ardent 



22 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

patriotism and conscientious regard for right never abated in 
the slightest degree in the brain and heart of the latter-day 
Pinckneys. 

In the life of our deceased brother may be gleaned many les- 
sons worthy to be emulated by the youth of the land. Through 
his whole career, public and private, the noblest and best 
impulses of humanity were ever present and predominant. The 
good ran through his whole existence. Evil never found lodg- 
ment in his make-up. The history of this man is worthy to be 
held up before all mankind. It is deserving of the best study 
and the deepest scrutiny of everyone. 

Let me briefly portray his career. He was a native Texan, 
born in Grimes County in May, 1845. When the war between 
the States came on in 1861, a beardless youth, he enlisted 
under the flag of the Confederacy. He joined Company G, 
Fourth Texas Regiment Volunteer Infantry, organized at 
Camp Texas, near Richmond, Va., in September, 1861, under 
Col. John B. Hood. He participated in all the battles of his 
regiment (except Fredericksburg) from the first, in the woods 
at Kltham Landing on the Virginia peninsula, through the 
campaigns in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ten- 
nessee, and Virginia again, until the immortal Robert F. Lee 
surrendered at Appomattox. Among the notable battles of 
his career were the great struggles at Gaines Mill, Second 
Manassas, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and the 
Wilderness. Once captured, he remained a prisoner only fif- 
teen davs. Thrice wounded, once seriously, he languished on 
the battlefield of the Wilderness for two days. His wounded 
Texas comrades stricken down by his side on that fateful day 
have testified to his soldierly bearing through that terrible 
ordeal. Rising from the blood-stained and cruel battle ground 
a veteran of many conflicts, though not yet 20 years of age. he 



Address oj Mr. Henry, of Texas 2 5 

emerged from that terrific struggle and returned to his home 
and native State. As soon as he could gather means and get 
himself in readiness, he took up the study of law, and in [875 
was admitted to the bar. Locating at Hempstead, the place 
where rest his mortal remains, he was elected district attorney, 
and for ten years, without opposition, held this responsible 
office, achieving most signal distinction as a prosecutor, so fair, 
honorable, vigilant, efficient, and courageous was his adminis- 
tration in office. In 1900, without opposition, he was chosen 
county judge of his county and filled that place with great 
credit until 1903, when he was elected to the United States 
Congress to fill out the unexpired term of the Hon. Thomas H. 
Ball, of Houston, Tex. 

It is but fair and appropriate in giving a brief history of this 
splendid man, without reference to who was right or wrong, to 
set down a short allusion to the causes leading to his untimely 
death. It is truly lamentable that the question of local option 
in his county had wrought good men up to fever heat and 
arrayed friends and neighbors in warring and opposing fac- 
tions. In his races for Congress his friends importuned him 
and said: ''John, give up prohibition or you will not win the 
Congressional race. ' ' So zealously imbued with the righteous- 
ness of his cause he promptly replied: "I will never go back 
on women and children for Congressman or any other office." 
Passions of men rose to the highest pitch, the citizens' meeting 
at Hempstead came, and in its midst, in the twinkling of an 
eye, the unsullied and knightly spirit of Johx M. Pinckxey 
was hushed forever. Without warning, without a murmur, his 
dauntless soul left his body while he calmly remarked: " They 
have killed me." A martyr to the cause he advocated and 
loved with all the intensity of his brave heart. 



24 Memorial Addresses: Johh M. Pinckney 

Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross 
Make up the groaning record of the past ; 

But evil's triumphs are her endless loss, 
And sovereign beauty wins the soul at last. 

No power can die that ever wrought for truth ; 

Thereby a law of nature it became, 
And lives uuwithered in its sinewy youth, 

When he who called it forth is but a name. 

To-day we pay tribute to a man noble in every sense of the 
word. A brave soldier in Hood's superb and immortal Texas 
brigade; a prosecuting officer of the highest and most efficient 
order for ten years; an upright judge of the county where he 
now lies buried among those who knew and loved him best. 
With a stainless record he put aside the judicial ermine for 
higher honors. The youth of Texas could not well find a bet- 
ter prototype revealing all the elements of true manhood in a 
greater degree than the late John M. Pinckney. He was 
never married, but lived with his brothers and the devoted sis- 
ter, Sue M. Pinckney. The story of his life would not be 
complete without a reference to the love between this sister 
and brother. Their heartstrings were entwined with one 
another in the most tender devotion ever witnessed by men and 
women. 

In all my experience and reading of history, fiction, romance, 
and poetry I have never met such complete love between sister 
and brother. This good man, who, in his 3-outh, as a mere 
boy, had cared for a crippled father and his brothers with an 
affection that can not be portrayed by language, had made this 
sister the very heart of his desires, his hopes, his love. This 
guardian angel of his existence was the cynosure of every 
aspiration and every effort. 

Prom her own language I know that for all the years of his 
life, after he became a man, he was never away from her a single 
day without sending to her through the mails some message of 



Address of Mr. Henry, of Texas 25 

tenderness and cheer. Each day he wrote her a letter filled 
with affection and brotherly solicitude. What devotion from 
brother to sister ! To know the life and love of this family 
thrills the heart and moves to tears, but when the tears are gone 
it makes us better for the exalted lessons that have been indeli- 
bly written in our innermost souls. Let me recite, substantially 
as another has given it, a brief incident illustrating the attach- 
ment between our deceased brother and this devoted sister. He 
worshiped at the shrine of his sister. The affection between 
Miss Sue Pinckney and John M. Pinckney was most extraor- 
dinary. Miss Pinckney is a writer of no mean ability, having 
been a contributor, 011 more than one occasion, to the local 
press. She is the author of Douglas, Tender and True, a story 
of life before and during the civil war, which has been published 
in book form, and another book just printed, A Tale of the 
South. She is a Christian who says "Our Father which art in 
Heaven" reverently, confidingly, and sincerely. She has no 
more doubt of her faith than of the sun. 

The night that John M. Pinckney was nominated for Con- 
gress in Houston he boarded the first train for home. The news 
had already been telegraphed ahead, and the town was lurid 
with bonfires. A band was at the depot to meet him, and when 
the familiar form of the nominee descended the steps the air was 
rent with shouts. He did not heed them, however, for he saw 
advancing toward him the familiar form of one who had been for 
years his comforter and companion. It was the form of his sif- 
ter. Though her figure was bent with the weight of years, and 
her face was not, in the common acceptance of the word, beauti- 
ful, it was lighted with the love of one whom she knew was 
happy on achieving the ambition of a lifetime. She was not 
attired in the latest Parisian garb, but on her head rested a plain 
white sunbonuet. To John Pinckney, however, the face was 



26 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

radiantly beautiful, and when they met he grasped her in his 

arms and showered kisses upon her brow. It was the happiest 

moment of his lifetime, and the onlookers stood back and deeply 

impressive silence reigned over the crowd that a few moments 

before had been tumultuously applauding. More than one eye 

was wet with tears of sympathetic joy. He once said: 

I owe more to my sister than can ever be expressed, and the ambition 
of my life is to so live that I will be worthy of her affection. 

In 1903 he came to Congress as the Representative of the 
Eighth Congressional district. His service here was brief, but 
was characterized by the strictest fidelity to official duty. He 
was at all times a Democrat of the purest and best type. He 
honored his constituency, Texas, and his party on all occasions. 

It can be truly said that John Pinckney never faltered at 

the discharge of public or private obligation. He knew not 

fear, physical or moral. I pronounce no empty declaration 

when saying he hated wrong and loved all righteous things. 

With an honorable and distinguished life's work ended, he has 

gone to that — 

Mysterious world, untraveled by the sun, 
Where Time's far-wandering tide has never run. 

In far-off Texas, 'neath a billowy blue sea of April flowers, 
he sleeps in the congenial soil of his native State. Texans 
knew, honored, and loved him. His memory will not soon 
be forgotten by her generous people. In one sphere alone did 
I know him best. He was my friend and here he proved 

himself 

Constant as the northern star, 

Of whose true-fixed and resting quality 

There is no fellow in the firmament. 

The life of John Pinckney was filled with those things 
that live after men to bless them. He will not be lost in the 
oblivion of forgetfuluess. Neighbors, friends, Texans \\\\\ 



Address of Mr. Henry, of Texas 27 

cling tenaciously to his memory. Those grizzled veterans 

yet living who faced death on a hundred fields of carnage will 

glory in his career, which sheds luster on their joint deeds 

of valor and patriotism. 

Valiant soul, farewell ! 
And though the warrior's sun has set. 
Its light shall linger round us yet, 
Bright, radiant, blest. 



28 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 



Address of Mr. Gregg, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker : It is but fitting that we, Members of this 
body, which deals so much with the statistics of material 
prosperity and the worth and value of material products, should 
pause occasionally and devote some of our time, thought, and 
energy to a consideration of the material of which men are 
made ; that we now and then should turn from glorifying par- 
tisan policies and political deeds to the exaltation of the deeds 
of men ; that we occasionally should turn from the prose of life 
to its poetry. 

This is why to-day, in pursuance of a custom handed down to 
us from the beginning, has been set aside to pay tribute to the 
memory and virtues of our friend who has passed over the river 
and now- rests under the shade of the trees. 

In the Fifty-eighth Congress there came to us one whom, 
though he stayed with us but a short time, all of us who knew 
him learned to love. This one, Mr. Speaker, was John M. 
Pinckney, of Texas. 

The history of this man's active participation in the affairs of 
his country may be divided into two clearly separate and dis- 
tinct periods or epochs, in each of which he builded for himself 
a monument more lasting then brass, the period of boyhood, 
for it was as a boy he fought the battles of his country and in- 
scribed his name upon the imperishable records of valor as the 
bravest of the brave; the period of manhood, for in this he 
battled with the adversities of destroyed fortune and an op- 
pressed and desolated land and inscribed his name upon the 
records of those trving times as the truest of the true. 



Address of Mr. Gregg, of Texas 29 

John M. Pinckney sprang from a long line of illustrious 
ancestors. He was a scion of the Pinckney stock who, in 
Colonial times and for the first third of the nineteenth century, 
dominated the political activities and governmental agencies 
of the States of Maryland and South Carolina. 

After serious financial reverses in 1837 his father settled in 
Texas. Here in Grimes County John M. Pinckney was born 
on the 5th day of May, 1845. 

While a boy in his teens the tocsin of war sounded. His 
country summoned ; he answered her summons and gave t<> her 
all his boyhood and young manhood. He enlisted on the 20th 
day of April, 1861, in Company G, Fourth Texas Infantry, then 
commanded by Col. John B. Hood. Immediately he left his 
home and saw it no more until the cause for which he fought 
was lost, his government overthrown, and his president a 
shackled prisoner in the chilly, gloomy casement at Fortress 
Monroe. He was a famous member of the famous Hood's Texas 
brigade. This brigade, it is the sober truth to say, was the 
best body of infantry that ever mustered on this globe. Xeno- 
phon has told of the advance and retreat of the 10,000 Greeks; 
no poet has sung, no historian has chronicled, the achievements 
of Hood's Texas brigade. 

When John M. Pinckxev and his brave companions in arms 
started on the long aud toilsome journey from Houston, Tex., 
to Richmond, Va. , they compassed in their march twice the dis- 
tance of Xenophon and his 10,000 Greeks. To their infinite 
chagrin they reached Richmond the day after the first battle of 
Manassas was fought. They were then incorporated into the 
army of northern Virginia and were the star brigade of that 
illustrious army. 

What the Macedonian phalanx was to Alexander, the Tenth 
Legion to Caesar, the Ironsides to Cromwell, the Old Guard to 
Napoleon, Hood's Texas brigade was to General Lee. 



30 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

In the most desperate charge of the civil war — of any war — 
that at Gaines Mill, in July, 1862, this brigade, under the imme- 
diate command of Gen. John B. Hood and under the eyes of 
their great commander, Lee, stormed three lines of bristling 
intrenchments, captured twenty-two pieces of artillery, and 
drove Sykes's division of regulars and Porter's whole corps in 
confusion from the field of battle. The gallant Hood, at the 
head of his victorious troops, was the first who leaped over the 
intrenchments; he turned, and there by his side stood the 
modest, brave, heroic John M. Pinckney. 

He was, with his stout-hearted brothers in arms, in the 
second Manassas, at Sharpsburg, and Suffolk. 

When Longstreet's corps reached the fatal field of Gettys- 
burg, in the early morning of the 2d day of July, 1863, John 
M. Pinckney and five others of his regiment were sent out on 
a scout to ascertain the enemy's line, position, and designs. 
Secretly, cautiously, and successfully they passed around the 
flank of the Federal Army, ascended the summits of Little 
and Big Round Top, and there beneath them, saw all the trains 
of the Union Army, its artillery, and thousands of its troops 
huddled together, not suspecting that the enemy was so near. 
The brave Pinckney immediately dispatched two of his scouts 
to General Hood with the information that they were on the 
flank of General Meade's army, and that that army, and all its 
trains and artillery, by bold and resolute attack, could be made 
the easy prize of General Lee, and urged that these positions 
be at once occupied by all the forces possible. When the mes- 
senger with this information reached General Hood, he was just 
forming his division for an assault on Peach Orchard. He 
begged General Longstreet for permission to make the move- 
ment suggested by Pincknky, but Longstreet could not grant 
it, as General Lee had given him imperative orders to charge 



Address of Mr. Gregg, of Texas 31 

with his corps up the Emmitsburg pike. Could this move- 
ment have been made, the result of the fearful struggle might 
have been different. 

When General Lee's broken legions retreated from their 
murderous and hopeless assault on Cemetery Hill back to Vir 
ginia, John M. Pincknev was ever with his command, at the 
point of danger; and when his division was hurried off to 
Chickamauga he went along, and under their veteran com- 
manders, Longstreet and Hood, this division, with Pincknev 
in the front rank, stormed Suodgrass Hill and drove the enemy 
in confusion from the blood}' field. 

At Knoxville, Bull's Gap, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania 
Court House, Cold Harbor, and at 100 battles and skirmishes 
around Richmond and Petersburg, John M. Pinckney was 
always in the van, and bore a hero's part. But amid all these 
scenes of carnage and death the Supreme Arbiter of life and 
death suffered him not to be seriously harmed, hut spared him, 
that he might become a factor in the material and social 
upbuilding of his beloved Southland, to whose cause he had 
devoted his boyhood and the flower of his young manhood. 

Forty-one years ago from the 8th day of this month he stood 
in the last line of battle of the Army of Northern Virginia, at 
Appomattox. On the following day he stacked his arms, and 
with streaming eyes and heavy heart took up his melancholy 
march to his far-distant home in Texas. 

While in war his character was grand, yet in the arts of 
peace, in his efforts for the enforcement of law and order, in 
his devotion to duty, in his fidelity to his friends, and in his 
ardent affection for his loved ones, his character was sublime. 

Though brave in war, he was heroic in peace. Though he 
devoted, in war, four years of his life in an effort to uphold the 
sovereignty of his State, he spent the remainder of his life in 



32 Memorial Addresses: Joint M. Pinckney 

an effort to uphold the dignity and sanctity of her laws. In 
war he was a terror to honorable foes, in peace he was a terror 
to evildoers, and a shield to righteousness and virtue, and a 
protector of the innocent. 

The same courage and the same fortitude, heightened in 
degree by his added years, he carried into civil life. He studied 
law by torchlight, and was admitted to the bar in 1875. In 
1890 he was appointed district attorney of his district by Gov- 
ernor Ross, and for ten years faithfully and efficiently prose- 
cuted all violators of the law. None were high enough or rich 
enough to secure immunity from just prosecution and punish- 
ment, and none low enough or poor enough to be subjected to 
unjust prosecution or punishment. 

If I were asked what were the strongest traits of his char- 
acter, I would say the honesty with which he formed his 
conclusions and the courage displayed in maintaining his con- 
victions. He won the sobriquet of "Honest John." Time 
will not permit me to mention more than one illustration of 
this courage of conviction. Prior to his becoming a candi- 
date for Congress he had been a Prohibitionist — that is, he 
favored the adoption by his community of the local laws pro- 
vided by the State of Texas to prohibit the open saloon. These 
laws were very unpopular in certain parts of his district, and 
certain friends wrote him: "John, let prohibition alone, or 
you are beat for Congress." This manly reply was sent : "I 
will not go back on my convictions for Congress or any other 
office." Like the great Clay, he had rather be right, as he 
saw it, than be President. This won the respect and admira- 
tion of the most bitter opponents of his views on this subject, 
for all of us admire a man who fearlessly stands for his con- 
victions, regardless of whether we agree with or differ from 
these convictions. 



Address of Mr. Gregg, of Texas 33 

If I were asked what was the crowning trait of his character, 
I would say his heaven-born devotion for those bound to him 
by ties of blood and family — his loved ones. While his love 
for his brothers was such that he would have given his life 
for them, the chords of his tenderest and sweetest affection 
naturally twined about his only sister. 

These two, the brother and sister, were all love and devotion ; 
they grew up together, and shared each other's every joy and 
sorrow. To her he was an idol ; to him she was a solace and 
inspiration and incentive to lofty ideals and deeds. 

He has been taken and now she is left. My heart goes out 
to her in her desolation. Alone, with no companion save the 
memory of his glorious life — alone to nurse that agony of grief 
which only a devoted heart like hers can feel, until she receives 
the summons to join again her loved ones upon the shore of 
that great beyond. 

H. Doc. S05, 59-2 3 



34 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 



Address of Mr. Burgess, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker: John McPherson Pinckney is dead, and 
his colleagues and friends meet here to-day to pay our last 
tribute of respect to his memory. He died a sudden and a 
tragic death, the circumstances and manner of which furnish 
but another of which history is full of those striking, bitter 
commentaries upon the frailty of mankind. That human 
beings should become aroused by reason of religious or political 
differences to the height of passion and prejudice and to engage 
in the destruction of each other seems in our peaceful moments 
in a Christian age incomprehensible, and that is exactly what 
did occur — a sad picture which furnishes for us food for the 
profouudest reflection. The victim in this case was a man of 
notable characteristics. Other colleagues have spoken already 
of his matchless career as a soldier, of his devotion to civic 
duty. Certain it is that a review of this man's career as a 
soldier in Hood's Texas brigade stirs human hearts, and is 
a matter in which not only every Texan, not only every son 
of the South, not only every American, but every brave man 
can rejoice. 

For many years Mr. Pinckney represented a judicial district, 
many counties of which were a part of the Congressional dis- 
trict in which I was first elected. We had very many warm 
mutual personal friends, and while I had known him for many 
years more or less intimately it was but natural that when he 
came to Congress we became at once intimate, warm personal 
friends. I wish to speak, out of my friendship for him and 



Address of Mr. Burgess, of Texas 35 

knowledge of his personal characteristics, of some of the ele- 
ments of his character, all of which will be abundantly con- 
firmed by what has been said of both his public and his private 
career. He came of an illustrious family, and while his envi- 
ronment as a young man was not equal to many more favored 
men in this life, it developed the fact that to be a fine character, 
to be a genuine gentleman, blood — family — cuts some figure 
and is a potent factor to that result. His early educational 
advantages were meager. His environment was not of the 
highest kind, which we term "polite society," but he came of 
good, honest stock. He was born and reared among good, 
honest people, and he lived and died a genuine gentleman that 
invokes those beautiful lines by Eliza Cook: 

Nature, with a lavish hand, sends forth her nobly born, 
And laughs the paltry attributes of wealth and rank to scorn. 
She molds with care a spirit rare, half human, half divine. 
And cries, exulting, " Who can make a gentleman like mine?'" 

The profoundest characteristic of this worthy man may be 
summed up in the simple and trite expression, "He was an 
honest man." And by honesty I mean more than that mere 
sense of obligation of which we sometimes speak as commercial 
honor. I mean more than a mere sense of duty to obey law 
and to discharge legal obligations. I mean a far deeper thing 
than that. That is superficial honesty; that is an honesty that 
may spring of policy and may be forced by intellectual recogni- 
tion of its advantages. 

The Great Teacher, in the profoundest of his parables, in 
which He likens men to soil and the Word to seed sown, depicts 
the fact that only that seed prospered which fell in ' ' good and 
honest soil." Real honesty is a gift of God worked out in 
those infinite processes which compose the law of heredity, and 
under all circumstances, under any environment, they will work 
out true results. 



36 Memorial Addresses: Joint M. Pinckney 

Such an honest man was John M. Pinckney, a man inher- 
ently honest, a man built to be honest, a man who desired to be 
nothing else but honest, a man whose fiber of soul was as true 
to truth as the magnet to the current that animates it. 

He also was a brave man, and I mean here, as in the other 
case, more than that bravery partaken of by the brute, more 
than that physical nerve to engage in a personal encounter. I 
mean that bravery which springs up in the human soul as a 
result of the sense of right, and which is the sister of honesty in 
the human heart; that bravery which knows no fear when once 
it conceives its duty. This man's career, as strikingly as any 
of the great of earth, revealed the fact that he was brave in the 
highest and best sense. Whether you differed with him as to 
his convictions upon which he went into the great civil conflict, 
whether you differed with him in his views in this or that case 
when he prosecuted in the courts of the country, whether you 
differed from him in his views that led in part, unfortunately, 
to his tragic death, whatever your view may have been, as 
opposed to his upon any issue, if you knew him you recognized 
that they were sincere, honest, manly, brave, and that he would 
not be swerved and would not be turned by any consideration 
of the result of his advocacy of the conviction. 

It follows from these two things, that were deep in the man's 
soul, as day follows night, that he was a loyal patriot ; that he 
was a sincere, unwavering friend; that he was devoted to every 
object of his affection. I have never heard, and I believe no 
other living man ever heard, in all the bitter contests of John 
M. Pinckney's life, his worst enemy proclaim that he had ever 
been false to a friend. He was as intense in this respect as 
any man I ever knew. I never came in personal contact with 
any man in all my experience who I thought had a higher sense 
of loyalty to his friendship, as well as his devotion to his prin- 
ciples and his duties. The man had a great heart. Not only 



Address of Mr. Burgess, of Texas 37 

his career as a soldier and as a citizen, not only his devotion as 
a friend, but his matchless affection, long-continued, for his 
sister, is one of the most wonderful things in the career of 
any man I know in history, in any age — anywhere. 

His maiden sister managed his home. She was mother, 
sister, daughter, sweetheart, all rolled into one. And no fond 
father, no devoted brother, no lover ever worshiped the object 
of his affection more deeply and continuously than John M. 
Pinckney worshiped his sister, Miss Sue, as she was commonly 
and generally called. You have heard it described here by 
other colleagues how for years, when separated from her in the 
discharge of his duties as district attorney and in other posi- 
tions in life, it was his daily custom to write this sister a letter. 
Ah, it is the little things in life that touch our hearts; it is 
the little things in life that go to make up the great sum 
of human character that at last, in the day of final account, 
glorify the human soul. 

This devotion was really pathetic. No mention of the man's 
life would be complete without a mention of this remarkable 
affection borne between this maiden sister and this old bachelor. 
No language can soften the grief of that heart. I would that 
I had power. I would that language had not so great limi- 
tation, so that it were possible that some of us could utter 
something here that would fall with softening effect upon that 
sorrowing heart. 

Nothing can be said, humanly speaking, that can soften her 
sorrow. If, as we hope and fondly believe, she be one of those 
whose faith is anchored within the vale, who can look with 
Christian eyes beyond the dark river and contemplate the 
glories of a future state beyond this, she may soften her grief 
and her sorrow by the hope that is left her, and all who grieve 
as she does, in the great beyond. 



38 Manorial Addresses : John M. Pinckney 



Address of Mr. Be all, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker: I can add nothing to what has already been 
said in beautiful tribute to the memory of John M. Pinckney. 
It is fit that on this beautiful Sabbath day, this da}' that is 
dedicated to rest and worship, when tree and flower are feeling 
the touch of a new resurrection, we should meet to honor the 
memory of as brave and lofty a spirit as ever walked among 
men. We speak no cold and formal words of eulogy of our 
dead to-day, for if he could speak to us from that mysterious 
and echoless shore John M. Pinckney would spurn such words 
if spoken. 

We come to voice a grief that is sincere, and to honor our- 
selves and our State by paying tribute to our colleague who has 
solved the mysteries of death. 

The birth of our friend was under humble conditions, but in 
his veins flowed the blood of a heroic race and an illustrious 
family, he being a descendent of the old Pinckue}' stock so 
distinguished in the early days of this Republic. He was a 
native of the district which he so faithfully represented here. 
His whole life was spent among these people, and they, better 
than all others, were acquainted with his virtues and his frail- 
tics, and the love his own people had for him is the surest testi- 
monial to his worth. 

I know of no surer test to apply to determine the worth of a 
man than to judge him in this way. A man here is viewed 
through a light that diminishes and reduces him below what 
he really is. If he is viewed through the partial glasses of 



Address of Mr. Bra//, of Texas 39 

relatives or intimate friends, he is unduly enlarged; but when 
he is measured by the regard of his own people as a whole, 
where neither intense friendship nor intense hostility refract 
the light, a fair estimate of his character can be reached. 

At the time of his birth Texas was just laying aside the 
scepter as an independent republic and was taking her place as 
a State of this Union. It was then far out upon the border 
line of civilization. Her vast prairies were then unsettled and 
her great forests were unpeopled. His early years were spent 
amidst the dangers and hardships of this frontier life. His 
opportunities for an education were limited. While he was 
but a slender, beardless boy he donned the uniform of the 
Confederacy and went out with the other brave spirits who 
formed Hood's immortal brigade of Texans. At Second 
Manassas, at Gaines Mill, at Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Chicka- 
mauga, the Wilderness, and upon a hundred other battlefields 
he looked death in the face without faltering. He fell, seriously 
wounded, in the Wilderness, but finally recovered. He suf- 
fered the horrors of captivity, but escaped. He was with the 
ragged and famishing battalions that Lee, the knightliest 
soldier of all time, surrendered to Grant, the generous one. 

To me there is something inexpressibly sad in the thought 
that this House is now honored by the presence of so few of 
those who participated in that great struggle upon either side. 
As the years go by their ranks are growing thinner and thin- 
ner here on earth, and fewer and fewer are those who answer 
to roll call in either branch of Congress. They were the 
choicest spirits that the world ever saw, and their record here 
has been no less honorable than their conduct upon the field 
of battle. 

When he returned from the war he became the support of 
his invalid father and of his brothers and sisters. He had 



40 Memorial Addresses : John M. Pinckney 

neither child nor wife to lavish his affection upon, and so he 
gave it in generous measure to brothers and sister and orphan 
children. Mention has already been made of the sweet and 
tender love between him and his sister. To him she repre- 
sented all that was tender and beautiful and good in woman; 
to her he was all that was noble, brave, and heroic in man. 
When separated, as they rarely were, neither the labor of his 
profession nor the cares of official position ever prevented him 
from sending his daily message of love to his "Sukey," as he 
fondly called her. 

When the convention met that first nominated him, the con- 
tent was liitter and the result uncertain. When finally he was 
nominated, he was sent for to address the convention, and 
amidst the applause of friends he was escorted to the platform. 
In that hour he forgot all about personal triumphs, but with, 
tearful eyes said, "Boys, you have made my sister the happiest 
woman in all the world to-day." 

It was told of him that when in the heat of the campaign it 
was charged that he really belonged to the Prohibition party 
because of his bitter opposition to the liquor traffic, he said: 
"I am a Democrat. If you don't believe that I am, k° as k my 
sister Sue." In the mind of this brave and simple old man 
there was no right of appeal from the judgment of that 
sister. 

I pray God to pity her and care for her in this night of lone- 
liness and sorrow to her. Within a few short months she was 
bereft of three brave brothers by the hand of violence. In a 
letter to one of my colleagues she says: ' ' Had any woman such 
awful trouble as is on me? Day and night I think of them. 
If the sun shines, my soul is sick; there are no dear boys here 
to enjoy it. If it rains, the raindrops that fall on their graves 
also fall upon my heart." 



Address of Mr. Beall, of Texas 41 

While we conduct these exercises here to-day, in far-off 
Texas, in a little cottage she sits with streaming eyes and 
breaking heart, caressing the blood-stained garments of her 
loved one, whispering to herself his name and living over in 
sorrowful memory the years of the past with him. 

Mr. Speaker, I rejoice that it was my privilege to serve with 
John Pincknev in this House and to know him. I admired 
and loved him because he had lived such a life of sacrifice for 
others; because he had been such a knightly soldier; because 
he was as gentle as a woman and as simple as a child. 

He was not a politician as the word is commonly used. He 
despised all the arts of the demagogue and all the practices of 
trickery and hypocrisy. He did not pretend to be what he was 
not. He was a plain, old-fashioned Texan, faithful to truth 
as he saw it and to duty as he understood it. 

I thank God that we live in a land that produces such men, 
and that honors such men , and that is blessed with the memory 
of such men. He was not a great man as the world usually 
measures greatness. Limited in opportunity and education, he 
possessed but ordinary ability and ordinary attainments. Yet 
he was a great man as measured by the truer standards of 
greatness. He was a man who dared to look his duty in 
the face and to follow, though by doing so he walked alone 
and in the night. He was a man who loved truth above all 
things else. He was a man who forgot himself and by the 
light of that sacrifice dedicated himself to the service of his 
fellowmau. 

His death was a cruel and needless sacrifice. His heart was 
pierced by the bullet of a cowardly assassin. He died as he had 
lived, pleading for the supremacy of the law and the protec- 
tion of the helpless. 



42 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

Mr. Speaker, the tired hands of our colleague are folded now 
and the weary eyes are closed forever. Above his grave the 
blue skies of his beloved Texas bend, but he sees them not ; the 
flowers are blooming about him, but he catches not their fra- 
grance ; the southern breezes whisper above his resting place, 
but he feels them not : the mocking bird sings wondrous 
melodies above his dust, but he hears them not. Let us 
hope that his spirit abides 'neath e'en fairer skies, where 
sweeter flowers blossom and gentler breezes blow, and where 
the strains of heavenly music thrill his soul. 



Address of Air. Garner, of Texas 43 



Address of Mr. Garner, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker: John M. Pinckney was a genuine son of 
the old South. He had the virtues and characteristics of a long- 
line of slave-holding ancestors, with but few of their vices. 
He was brave, honest, patriotic, unselfish, and the ruling prin- 
ciple of his nature was the performance of every duty intrusted 
to him. 

While he was yet a raw boy in his teens, on his father's 
plantation, the great civil war burst upon the country. With 
youthful ardor he threw aside his school books aud enlisted 
in Company G, Fourth Texas Infantry, then commanded by 
the Marshall Ney of the Confederacy, John B. Hood. He was 
with the Confederacy from its beginning to its end. He sat 
by its cradle ; he followed its hearse. 

He marched with his command from Houston, Tex., to 
Richmond, Ya. There his regiment was incorporated, with 
other Texas regiments, into Hood's famous brigade, which was 
the finest brigade of the finest division of the finest corps of the 
finest army that ever marched to battle, that bodj' of incom- 
parable infantry, that array of tattered uniforms and bright 
muskets, the Army of Northern Virginia, which, as has been 
eloquently and truly said, "carried for four years the revolt of 
the South on its bayonets and died only with its annihilation." 

If the many battles, marches, and victories of Hood's Texas 
brigade could be written, truly its story would rival the 
Odyssey in adventure, romance, and thrilling interest. They 
won glorious victories in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, 



44 Memorial Addresses : John AT. Pinckney 

North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. More than half a 
dozen States were the theater of their brilliant exploits in 
arms. At Yorktown, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, and the 
seven days' battles around Richmond, second Manassas, South 
Mountain, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Suffolk, Gettysburg, 
Chickamauga, Campbell Station, Knoxville, Bulls Gap, the 
Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court-House, Cold Harbor, in a 
hundred battles around Petersburg and Richmond, its plume 
floated bravely and defiantly on the red crest of battle and 
where the storm was fiercest there was John M. Pinckney. 
Often have I heard him tell how, in the late afternoon of the 
15th day of September, 1862, Hood's brigade, with worn and 
wasted ranks, stood on the fatal field of Sharpsburg, and right 
across the Antietam River they beheld McClellan's vast army 
unrolling for battle. When Hood's heroes saw this mighty host 
arrayed against them and looked around on their thin, gray line 
they shuddered, but just then they turned around and there on 
the hill behind them they saw outlined against the sky the heroic 
figure of their great commander, that god of battles, General 
Lee, seated on his charger and calmly surveying the scene of 
the coming contest. When Hood's brave veterans saw their 
great commander they raised a shout of exultation which 
cheered their comrades all down the line and carried defiance 
to the brave foes in front of them. In the crisis of the battle 
of the Wilderness, when General Lee put himself in front of 
Hood's Texas brigade to lead a desperate charge against the 
victorious enemy, it was a comrade of John M. Pinckney who 
seized hold of his horse's bridle, and John M. Pinckney joined 
in the shout, "General Lee to the rear, and then we will go to 
the front." Where the strife was direst there was the Texas 
brigade. 



Address of Mr. Garner, of Texas 45 

In the very forefront of all of its desperate battles stood 
John M. Pinckney. 

In the winter of 1864 and 1S65, when this gallant band had 
been reduced to hardly a respectable company in numbers, it 
was proposed to consolidate them with a North Carolina bri- 
gade. A delegation, of which John M. Pinckney was a mem- 
ber, was sent to General Lee to protest against their destruc- 
tion as a brigade. General Lee joined in their protest and gave 
them a letter to President Davis. When old Howdy Martin, 
who was made the head of the delegation, found President 
Davis and eloquently protested against the destruction of their 
autonomy as a brigade, the stout heart of the inflexible and 
resolute Davis relented. He burst into tears and told the ragged 
veterans in front of him to go back to their command; as long 
as the Confederacy lived and he was its chief executive never 
would that great, grand old brigade cease to preserve its original 
organization. The gray and grizzled veterans carried back this 
message to their comrades, and in all subsequent battles they 
made good the confidence reposed in them by General Lee and 
Jefferson Davis. 

John M. Pinckney marched with his brigade into Rich- 
mond on the Sunday preceding its evacuation. He there 
boarded the cars for Petersburg, and on the way looked back 
and saw the whole sky aflame with the conflagration of the 
capital of the Confederacy. When he reached Petersburg he 
there saw Generals Lee and Longstreet seated on their horses 
gazing woefully on the remnant of the brave old Army of 
Northern Virginia marching in the gloomy night away from 
the scene of its many trials and victories. 

John M. Pincknev fought all the way to Appomattox. 
There he stacked his arms with the few survivors of his brave 
old brigade, marched back to Texas with a broken heart, 



46 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

ruined fortune, and to a destroyed home. He girded himself 
anew for the battle of life, and in peaceful civil pursuits lived 
out his appointed days. 

By the voluntary suffrage of his friends and countrymen he 
was elected to many honorable and responsible offices, the diffi- 
cult duties of which he always performed successfully, faith- 
fully, and well. In every conflict of opinion he always stood 
for righteousness and for right. Dying, he left behind him an 
untarnished name and spotless record. No monument marks 
his final resting place, but there where he sleeps are sepul- 
ehered the ashes of one of the best, the bravest, and noblest 
of men. 



Address of Mr. Lamb, of I trginia 47 



Address of Mr. Lamb, of Virginia 

Mr. Speaker: We turn once more on this Sabbath day to 
the contemplation of death. " All that live must die — passing 
through nature to eternity." The rich and the poor, the hum- 
ble and the great alike, must fall before this enemy of mankind. 

There is a spirit which haunts us night and day, in sunshine 
and sorrow, evermore repeating this warning: 

Vain man, thy fond pursuits forbear; 

Repent; thy end is nigh. 
Death, at the farthest, can't be far — 

Oh, think before thou die. 

" All men know, or dream, or fear of agony" is embraced in 

death. Nature, experience, conscience all sound in our ears 

the melancholy truth: 

To die, to sleep; 
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub: 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 
When we have shuffled of this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause. 

In the sad and tragic death of John M. Pinckney the State 
of Texas lost a useful and loyal citizen; this House a patient, 
attentive, and valuable Member, and each one of us who knew 
him well a faithful and warm-hearted friend. Outside of his 
own delegation perhaps he had no better friend in this body 
than myself. We often walked up Pennsylvania avenue to- 
gether after the adjournment of the House. 

I was always interested in the accounts he gave of the vari- 
ous engagements in which Hood's celebrated brigade partici- 
pated. Many of these occurred in the territory that now forms 
•a part of the district I represent. The topograph}- is familiar 



48 Memorial Addresses : John M. Pinckney 

to me, and I participated in several of these engagements. 
The modesty with which he referred to his own part in these 
battles impressed me greatly. Gentleness was among the 
many virtues of our deceased colleague. I recall many conver- 
sations with him in and out of this Chamber that impressed 
this fact on my mind. 

From the notices of his sad taking off, published in the 
Texas papers and loaned me by my friend and colleague, Hon. 
Morris Sheppard, I could easily see that this trait of character 
had won him lasting friends in his district. 

The poet had in his miud's eye just such a character when 
he sung : 

His life was gentle, and the elements 
So mixed in him that nature 
Might stand up and say to all the world, 
This was a man. 

His love for his kindred, and devotion to his friends, as well 
as loyalty to his State and party are beautifully protrayed in 
the extracts from the papers published in Texas at the time of 
his death. 

I may well leave these to be elaborated on by the members 
of his delegation, while in a few simple words I put on record 
my tribute to a friend and colleague, an old comrade in arms. 

He showed in this House, in every conversation, his deeds on 
the battlefield, and even in the very last moments of his tragic 
death, that — 

The bravest are the tenderest, 
The loving are the daring. 

In the death of our colleague and friend another private 
soldier of the immortal band that followed the fortunes of the 
Army of Northern Virginia through victory and defeat for four 
long years has answered the long roll call. He has joined the 
great majority. For all we know he may be now listening to 



Address of Mr. Lamb, of I irginia 49 

debates such as this House can never hear, and could not com- 
prehend if heard. In the council chamber of the spirit laud he 
may have learned ere this why so often on our little earth — 
Truth was on the scaffold and error on the throne. 

He doubtless knows what he and others have strived oft- 
times to learn — why freedom and independence was denied a 
brave people who deserved, yet failed, to win success. For all 
we know, his emancipated spirit tries in vain to tell us, both in 
our waking and sleeping hours, the manifold truths of which 
we can not even dream. 

Even the "laws of the spirit," of which we know so little, 
because fettered by a casket of clay, must have their metes and 
bounds. Some day we will know even as now he knows. 

A soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia can well imagine 
a reunion of the choice spirits of that noble band that com- 
posed the rank and file of Hood's Texas brigade. 

Believing, as most of us do, that life has no end, and is one 
continuous progress and evolution, we can fancy no condition 
when the deeds and actions of a former state of being will not 
be food for thought and subject of comment. 

If this be so — and there is no good reason for doubting it- 
then our colleague is enjoying spiritual communion with his 
old comrades in arms in a city not built with hands, where sor- 
rows and disappointments are not known and death never 
enters. 

Our deceased friend and colleague was a private soldier of 
that "incomparable body of men, the glorious infantry of the 
Army of Northern Virginia" that so often hurled back in con- 
fusion the splendidly equipped legions of the North. They im- 
mortalized Lee and glorified Jackson and will live in song and 
story while the history of Marathon and Thermopylae fires the 
H. Doc. S05, 59-2 4 



50 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckncy 

heart of patriotism and the charge of Balaklava brightens the 
lamp of chivalry. 

Survivors of the war between the States ou either side have 
observed and commented often on the unselfish devotion of the 
private soldier. 

The general, the colonel, the major, the captain, charged 
with responsibility and nerved with ambition, too often soldiers 
of fortune, had a stimulus and hope of reward that did not 
often stir the private soldier. His breast was fired and his arm 
nerved by devotion to duty. 

He was in many cases better born and more intelligent than 
his officers, yet he was obedient to orders and marched into the 
jaws of death with a heroism and courage that has challenged 
the admiration of the world. He knew in the story of the bat- 
tles the officers' names would be mentioned, and, if among the 
slain, they would be borne to well-marked tombs, over which 
loving hands and grateful hearts would spread flowers and shed 
tears, while over his own grave, unmarked — unnamed most 
likely — the winds would sing a sad requiem, and no loving 
hand would plant a single flower. 

A soldier of the Second Virginia Cavalry, in pathetic verse, 
has epitomized this subject, and a lady in Loudoun County, 
Ya., has put the words to music. 

Often around the camp fires I have heard soldiers sing: 

"All quiet along the Potomac," they say, 

Except here and there a stray picket 
Is shot, as he walks ou his beat to and fro, 

By a rifleman hid in the thicket. 

'Tis nothing — a private or two now and then 

Will not count in the news of the battle; 
Not an officer lost — only one of the men — 

Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle. 



Address of' Mr. Lamb, of Virginia 51 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; 
Their tents, in the rays of the clear autumn moon 

Or in the light of their camp fires, gleaming. 

A tremulous sigh as a gentle night wind 
Through the forest leaves softly is creeping, 

While the stars up above with their glittering eyes 
Keep guard o'er the army while sleeping. 

There is only the sound of the lone sentry's tread, 
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, 

And thinks of the two on the low trundle bed 
Far awav in the cot on the mountain. 

His musket falls back, and his face dark and grim, 

Grows gentle with memories tender. 
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep. 

For their mother — may heaven defend her ! 

The moon seems to shine as brightly as then, 

That night when the love yet unspoken 
Leaped up to his lips and when low murmured vows 

Were pledged to be ever unbroken. 

Then, drawing roughly his sleeve o'er his eyes, 

He dashes off tears that are welling, 
And gathers his gun close up to its place 

As if to keep down the heart swelling. 

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree, 

His footsteps are lagging and weary ; 
Yet onward he goes through the broad belt of light 

Toward the shades of the forest so dreary. 

Hark! was it the night wind rustled the leaves? 

Was it moonlight so wond'rously flashing? 
It looked like a rifle. "Ha! Mary, good-by ! " 

And the lifeblood is ebbing and plashing. 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 

Xo sound save the rush of the river ; 
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead— 

That picket's off duty forever. 

Again we may draw some useful lessons from the contempla- 
tion of our colleague as a type of the Confederate soldier who 
survived that struggle and entered at once upon another that 
challenged to the utmost his courage, patience, and endurance. 



52 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinekney 

The obstacles overcome and the victories won by our friend 
in this field of endeavor will be told by others better equipped 
for the task than I can possibly be. 

The way in which the southern soldiers gathered up the 
fragments and rebuilt their waste places after the war was 
simply marvelous. The cold facts, gathered from statistics, 
will show them as active in peace as they had been in war. 
Mere, too, the individual apparently counted for little, but he 
helped to swell the sum total of the striving masses who have 
been laying surely, if slowly, the foundations of new structures 
destined to surpass in wealth and power those that went down 
in the fierce conflict of battle. 

Toward this rehabilitation John M. Pinckney contributed 
his full share in the State of Texas, as his colleagues from that 
State have shown this day. 

We will cherish his memory and pray that peace and con- 
tentment may follow those who directly bind that memory to 
earth. 

It will not be long before some of us shall join him on the 

other shore. Death is no more mysterious than life. 

So live, that, when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan that moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not like the quarry slave at night 
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



Address of Mr. Sheppard, of Texas 53 



Address of Mr. Sheppard, of Texas 

Mr. Stkaker: Emotions weird and numberless overwhelm 
us as we turn from the grave wdiose gates are closing on the 
form of some beloved companion and wander among the castles 
of the dust. As meditation deepens we see the shadowy out- 
lines rise until the melancholy habitations of the dead surround 
us in unending vistas. It is a universe of gloom, an empire 
of the night. On every wall and tower sits the scepter of the 
dark. In every chamber solitude is unquestioned monarch. 
We speak, but only an inaudible whisper leaves the lips. We 
tread the pallid passages, but no sound betrays our steps. We 
see the phantom multitudes — the fleshless fingers, the ghastly 
brows, the pulseless frames — myriads on myriads pouriug from 
a vast and dim horizon, a noiseless Niagara of the dead. They 
swell the twilight avenues and flood the fragile palaces, a dis- 
mal pageantry that ceases not but ever multiplies. We see the 
forms of those we love. With grief unspeakable we observe 
the features stark, the bloodless lips, the lifeless eyes in which 
shine neither recognition nor affection, but only the feeble 
glimmer of decay. In the desperation of an agony which a 
strange paralysis chains unuttered in the soul we reel against 
that tide of death to find the vision vanished and in its place a 
cemetery with a city near at hand. 

In contemplation of the grave a thousand fantasies arise. It 
is the theme of all themes most prolific in the literature of the 
world. In the oldest writings known to man — the Yedas, Brah- 
mas, and A vestas — it was the source of the profoundest specula- 



54 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

tion. Its origin was conjectured in the strains of Hesiod. It 

was defied and satirized in the philosophy of Epicurus and 

Lucretius. It was exalted in the meditations of Aurelius. It 

gave a somber emphasis to the barbaric melodies of Beowulf 

and all the war chants of the Saxon time. It touched with 

resistless sorrow the flaunting cynicism of the Rubaiyat. It 

darkened the life of Petrarch, who emptied his heart in crimson 

sonnets on the tomb of Laura. It was apotheosized in Milton's 

classic grief for Lycidas, wherein the bard immortal bids 

* * * amaranthus all his beauty shed 
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, 
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. 

It prompted the pathetic imagery of Robert Blair, the elegy 
of Thomas Gray. It suggested to the observant genius of John- 
son the famous dirge upon the vanity of human wishes. It 
added horror to the wild imaginings of Poe. It freighted with 
a pathos deep and exquisite his lamentations for the lost Lenore, 
his distress for the death of Annabel Lee, and the journeyinss 
to the tomb of Ulalume. 

Down by the dank tarn of Auber, 

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 

Such are the reflections with which we approach the com- 
memoration of the death of John McPherson Pinckney— 
reflections saddened beyond all measure by the recollection of 
his infinite nobility. He combined the qualities of a brave and 
spotless manhood. Honor radiated from his soul, while truth 
sat on his brow as on a throne. He was in manner gentle and 
in action firm. His faith was perfect and his love sincere. 
Friendship was his altar and justice his shrine. Purity in pur- 
pose and courage in execution were the striking elements of his 
nature, and in his lofty philosophy duty was but another word 
for God. 



Address of Mr. Shcppard, of Texas 55 

Although a native of Texas, he was a descendant of the 
Pinckneys of South Carolina, who were conspicuous among 
the founders of the Republic and who adorned the history of 
their State and the nation with examples of patriotism and 
ability. His early existence was one of uneventful toil. From 
the reluctant earth he was compelled by stern conditions to aid 
in obtaining the necessities of life for a crippled father and a 
family of brothers and sisters. Thus was impressed upon his 
tender years the principle of unselfish love which ennobled his 
entire career. When he was 16 years of age the American 
civil war began, and he became a Confederate soldier. He 
took part as a private in Hood's brigade in nearly all the im- 
portant battles and campaigns of that mighty struggle, sur- 
rendering with Lee at Appomattox. His bearing on the field 
and in the camp was flawless. He was faithful to comrade 
and loyal to commander. He was cheerful in the bivouac, 
tireless on the march, and terrible in the charge. His daring 
on one occasion led to his capture, but he was soon released. 
He was thrice wounded, once quite seriously. The close of 
the contest found him a veteran of one of the greatest wars in 
history at the age of 20. 

He returned to his home to face the forces of reconstruction, 
enemies to be more dreaded than the forces of invasion bv 
which he had been overpowered. In common with his coun- 
trymen he began the task of rebuilding a shattered land. He 
labored at various employments for ten years, being still the 
principal support of the family. Whatever respite he could 
secure was utilized in the study of law and general literature, 
and in 1S75 he was admitted to the bar. When it is recalled 
that during the most impressionable period of his youth he had 
been subjected to the demoralizing influences of war, that after 
the conclusion of hostilities society was in an unsettled and 



56 Memorial Addresses: John M. Pinckney 

perilous condition, and that the demands upon his time and 
means strained his energies to the utmost, we may begin to 
comprehend the moral strength and resolution with which he 
discharged every obligation to his family and his country, and 
yet found time to cultivate the gentler graces of the mind and 
to prepare successfully for the bar. 

He was an able and progressive lawyer. He was a vigorous 
and convincing advocate, a frank and honest counselor. His 
professional conduct was above question. His conception of 
his relation to court, to client, and to adversary rested on the 
highest ethical basis. He would never sacrifice principle for 
gain nor truth for tainted victory. It was not purely as a 
lawyer, however, that he achieved a commanding position in 
the community. The people knew that above the lawyer stood 
the man. They came to love him for his worship of right, his 
devotion to justice, and for the stainless splendor of his integ- 
rity. The people as a whole, Mr. Speaker, possess a remark- 
able power of analysis, an unerring judgment of sincerity in 
public men. They seem to know by some mysterious instinct 
when public servants are prompted by proper or improper 
motives. It may be that for this reason the voice of the people 
is said to be divine. At any rate it is certain that the people 
of John M. Pinckney's section came intuitively to regard him 
as the embodiment of law, the personification of its majesty. 
He was elected to the office of prosecuting attorney. The peo- 
ple summoned him to combat the elements which threatened 
the overthrow of society, and his response was prompt and 
manful. For ten years he championed the peace and dignity 
of the vState. As a prosecutor he was utterly fearless and won- 
derfully effective. 

At the close of his service as district attorney he became, in 
1900, county judge of his home county. When he was nomi- 



Address of Mr. Shcppard, of Texas 57 

nated for Congress at Houston in 1903 the people of Hemp- 
stead, the place of his residence, prepared a joyful reception. 
As he stepped from the train that had borne him home the 
shouts of multitudes, the peals of music, the clangor of bells 
united in a tumultuous but happy welcome. First to greet 
him was his sister, Miss Sue Pinckney, whom he loved and 
worshiped with a constancy as rare as it was beautiful. Be- 
tween them had existed a devotion for which the language of 
poets, the canvas of artists, the marble of sculptors have no 
adequate expression. For more than half a century they had 
walked hand in hand through shadow and through light. 
Hardly a day had ever passed that they did not communicate 
in some way. As he embraced her on this supreme occasion 
the clamor immediately ceased and the great throngs in rev- 
erent silence observed this expression of as pure a love, a 
lovalty as sublime, as ever flowered in the human heart. Of 
his sister he once said: 

I owe more to her than can ever be expressed, and the ambition of 
my life is so to live that I will be worthy of her affection. 

It was when he assumed his seat in Congress that I made his 
acquaintance. We were drawn together by the fact that we 
were, respectively, the youngest and oldest Members of the 
Texas delegation. From acquaintance to friendship, from 
friendship to affection, were but short and eager steps. Our 
association here was most intimate. I had thorough opportu- 
nity to observe him in every phase and mood of life, and 
admiration rivaled love. He gave the closest and most con- 
scientious attention to the proceedings of the House. He 
would remain in his seat through the tedious deliberations 
on long appropriation bills, evincing the liveliest interest in 
everv motion and in every debate. When death retired him 
he was rapidly taking a high place among the most conserva- 



58 Memorial Addresses: Joint M. Pinckney 

tive and useful Members of this body. Of the civil war he 
frequently spoke. Of his record as a Confederate soldier 
he was justly proud. He accepted, however, the logic of Appo- 
mattox. He gloried in a reunited country and a common flag. 
He believed with Jefferson Davis that on the arch of the Union 
should be written, " Esto perpetua " — be thou perpetual. 

The significance of his life lies in the fact that he was a 
typical Confederate soldier. Earth has no higher title. As I 
heard from his laconic lips the story of that giant strife I saw 
the hosts in battle line. I saw the thinning rank through four 
tempestuous years yield slowly to superior force. I heard the 
thunderous prelude of Manassas. I saw the fires of Carthage, 
Lexington, Columbus, and Ball's Bluff. I saw the surge of 
Shiloh's thousands, the clash of the legions at Murfreesboro. 
I saw the crimson skies of Malvern Hill, of Antietam, and of 
Fredericksburg. I saw the carnage of Chickamauga and Mis- 
sionary Ridge. I heard the crash of Jackson's columns against 
the opposing myriads at Chancellorsville. I saw the charge at 
Gettysburg. I saw the gleam of a million bayonets encircle 
the tattered groups of gray. In the gloom of the Wilderness 
I saw them approach the superbest martyrdom since Calvary's 
agonies made all defeat and sorrow holy. And when the 
tumult of the conflict fell there rose above the ashes of Southern 
hopes and homes a cross that bore the figure of a Confederate 
soldier. Beyond the waste of nineteen hundred years I saw 
that other cross on which a God had died ; and I knew that 
through my tears I saw the two sublimest sacrifices of God for 
man, and man for his conception of the truth. 

Sleep, warrior, sleep. Your unimprisoned soul now mingles 
with the armies in the tents of light, where blue and gray to- 
gether welcome every comrade to the rank immortal, armies 



Address of Mr. Sheppard, of Texas 59 

summoned to the peace of endless morning by reveilles from 
the lips of God — enemies no more, but brothers there and 
their united children brothers here, forever and forever. 

FURTHER ACTION OF THE HOUSE. 

And then, in pursuance of the resolution heretofore adopted, 
the House (at 12 o'clock and 47 minutes p. m. I adjourned. 



6o Memorial Addresses: Joint M. Pinckney 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE 

Wednesday, December 6, igo§. 

A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. W. J. 
Browning, its Chief Clerk, communicated to the Senate the 
intelligence of the death of Hon. John M. Pinckney. late a 
Representative from the State of Texas, and transmitted reso- 
lutions of the House thereon. 

Mr. Culberson. Mr. President, I ask the Chair to lay before 
the Senate the resolutions of the House of Representatives 
relative to the death of Hon. John M. Pinckney, late a Repre- 
sentative from the State of Texas. 

The Vice-President. The Chair lays before the Senate the 
resolutions referred to by the Senator from Texas. They will 
be read. 

The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 

In the House of Representatives, 

December 5, 1905. 
Resolved, That the House has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hon. John M. Pinckney, late a Representative from the State of 
Texas. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of the House be directed to transmit this reso- 
lution to the Senate, and a copy thereof to the family of the deceased. 

Mr. Culberson. Mr. President, I offer the resolutions which 
I send to the desk, and ask for their present consideration. 

The Vice-President. The Senator from Texas submits for 
present consideration resolutions which will be read. 

The resolutions were read, and considered by unanimous 
consent, as follows: 



Proceedings in the Senate 61 

Resolved That the Senate has beard with deep sensibility the announce- 
ment of the death of Hon. John M. PincknEV, late a Representing 
from the State of Texas. 

*««/« ■•/. Thai as an additional mark of respect to the memory of tlu 
deceased the Senate do now adjourn. 

The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to the 
resolutions submitted by the Senator front Texas. 

The resolutions were unanimously agreed to; and -at 2 
o'clock and 7 minutes p. m. ) the Senate adjourned until 
to-morrow, Thursday, December 7 , 1905. at 12 o'clock meridian. 

Monday, April 30, 1906. 
\ message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. W. J. 
Browning its Chief Clerk, transmitted to the Senate resolutions 
of the House commemorative of the life and public services of 
Hon. John M. PincknEY, late a Representative from the State 
of Texas. 





